


The Kiss

by Spark_Writer



Series: Human Error [5]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Infidelity, Kissing, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-28
Updated: 2014-08-28
Packaged: 2018-02-15 03:37:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2214348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spark_Writer/pseuds/Spark_Writer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's the first time, the last time, the every and always and only time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Kiss

 

 

John leans into him and his stomach falls through the floor.

 

A litany, a montage of fragmented desire flying through his head:

 

kiss me kiss me kiss me please John I’m yours I want you so badly I can barely breathe I never thought it was possible for me to feel this way but all I can think of is kissing you and it’s so fucking distracting we have to do something about this we can’t just stay in this good for nothing no-man’s-land forever there has to be a shift there has to be a moment of clarity it’s too unbearable to keep on this way something has to change someone should say something but you don’t you can’t you don’t love me so I guess it’s my job to say what needs to be said and why does it feel like I’m having a heart attack you’re a doctor you should know maybe I’ll ask you why and maybe you will understand that I’m discussing the figurative here and not the physical maybe then you’ll understand that I am

 

that I am in love with you

 

 John’s face is not perfect. It’s got a fair few blemishes. Crow’s feet round the eyes, freckles from dragging days spent in Afghani sunshine, a slight sagging of the skin brought on by age and stress and more loss than ought to be inflicted on any one person. But. It’s a beautiful face, still. It’s a face Sherlock reads like a beloved story book, like his old copy of Peter Pan with the nonexistent spine and blissfully nostalgic aesthetic. It’s a face that speaks the things John will never _say_ , and for that reason above all, it is beautiful.

 

And it's so close to Sherlock’s, this blessedly legible countenance. Mere inches away. Near enough to transmit body heat and the bare susurrus of breath slowly exhaled. Coming closer. Hard to tell which of them stops breathing first.

 

John looks at him. He looks at John.

 

Perhaps in another world they would weigh the potential outcome of their actions, but there is not time for that now. There is only warmth and want. They decide in under a second; John tilts his head left, Sherlock does the same. They cross space. Mouths almost touching, lips almost brushing. Emotions, for once, laid painfully bare.

 

When they kiss, their eyes are closed.

 

Sherlock has a cut on his lip from an experiment that morning. John sucks at the wound. Gasps. His lips are chapped like he’s been hiking through frigid terrain. Sherlock clutches at the arm of the sofa. They make sounds. Pleasure-sounds. Lust-sounds. It’s painful, in the way that a kiss is when both parties know it won’t—can’t—be repeated. It’s the first time, the last time, the ever and always and only time. John moves his lips as though he’s making confessions into Sherlock’s softly opening mouth. And he is, sort of. There is truth at the heart of this kiss. They pretend they don’t notice it, they keep moving, but it’s there. Unsuccessfully ignored by the both of them.

 

It’s a quiet ache, kissing some for the first and last time at once. You have to make sure you are transmitting all the right sentiments. You have to explain how you feel in one fell swoop—no second chances, no do overs, no reprises. Sherlock tries not to think of all the other places he could have kissed John. In starlight, in rain, in busy streets, in alleys, in pubs, in front of the dead, in front of the living, in front of the strange, the familiar, the beautiful. Here, on Baker Street, again and again. He has to give that up. Loosen his grip. Let the vision fall gently to dust. They are going to need to breathe soon. And when they do, this will stop being a real thing and become memory. It will stop being a _now_ and become a _then._

 

 He grips John, unsteady. John grips back, steady.

 

They open their eyes.

 

 


End file.
